


drench yourself in words unspoken

by raisindeatre



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Slow Burn, Soulmate AU, more prose-y than my other pieces i think, not as plot-heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 20:33:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11409702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raisindeatre/pseuds/raisindeatre
Summary: A treatise on soulmates, and the different roles they play in life.





	drench yourself in words unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> So this happened because I've been thinking a lot about the idea of soulmates and if it's inherently problematic to believe in the inevitability of fate and the concept of "one person for you, for always". And, uh, I guess it probably is - but I still love soulmate AUs with every inch of my being, so I tried to write this in a way that would subvert the trope into something healthier, if only a little. I can only hope I succeeded.
> 
> Also the title of this fic is from [Natasha Bedingfield's 'Unwritten'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7k0a5hYnSI) because my god, you guys. That song. What a banger. A true classic

_I don’t need luck_ , Zuko says to Aang as the blizzard howls around them, as they take shelter from the ice and the wind.  _I don’t want it. I’ve always had to struggle and fight and that’s made me strong. That’s made me who I am._

 

He turns and, like, he knows the kid is in some Avatar Spirit-World trance or whatever, but he can’t quite quash the spark of irritation he feels at the sight of Aang’s sleeping face. He wouldn’t be the first person to doze off during one of Zuko’s monologues (that honour goes to Uncle Iroh, and then… to basically every sailor on the boat Zuko has called home for the past three years) but it’s still affronting. Honestly.

 

Zuko crouches down to study the pale blue arrows on Aang’s skin, and wonders if there are other tattoos that mark him. If it’s even possible for the Avatar, the great bridge between the human and the Spirit World, to have a soulmate.

 

Not that Zuko really believes in soulmates anymore. That kind of comes with the territory. Once you believe you make your own path, once you decide you don’t need luck or fate, soulmates - which are a bit of both - are pretty much rendered pointless as well. And, well. Just look at what happened with Mai.

 

* * *

 

So. What happened with Mai was bad.

 

They meet for the first time in the palace gardens when Zuko is only eleven years old. Zuko is bent over, throwing bread crumbs at a turtle duck swimming in the pond when a voice from behind him says, slow and clear, “Leave him alone.”

 

Zuko bolts upright, every muscle in his body held to attention. The words on his skin - the words this girl  _has just said,_ which can mean, which can  _only_ mean - seem to burn where they curve along his hipbone. When he turns to look at her, he sees a girl just a little shorter than him, all porcelain skin and dark hair and slanted cat eyes.

 

It doesn’t feel like a missing puzzle piece has fallen into place. It doesn’t feel like she’s singing a song only the two of them can hear. It doesn’t feel like anything those stupid romance scrolls (which, alright, Zuko reads sometimes when he’s bored) talk about. It feels strange and uncertain and heavy. It feels like one giant question mark. It feels like  _already?_ and  _you?_

 

He opens his mouth, doesn’t say anything for a long time. It’s happened. She’s happened. He still can’t quite believe it.

 

Then, like an idiot, the first words out of his mouth are: “But this turtleduck is mine.” He hastens to add, “I mean, everything here is mine,” which doesn’t really sound better. He winces, rubs the back of his neck. “I  _mean_ , because I’m the prince.”

 

“I know who you are,” the girl says, and smiles at him, just a little. “I’m Mai.”

 

* * *

 

 _But this turtleduck is mine_  are not the words tattooed on Mai’s skin.    

 

Later, she will never really know why she did it. Even at nine years old, she knew as well as anyone what a soul mark was. She must have recognized the words running along Zuko’s hipbone for what they were, must have understood what saying them to him - the first words she would  _ever_ say to him - would mean.

 

But all she knows at the time is that Azula’s big brother is good-looking in a way that makes her heart skip in her chest. All she knows is that the boy in front of her in the garden, chin lifted and eyes bright, will be the Fire Lord someday. All she knows is that even at nine years old, her parents have begun to dream of their daughter becoming queen, the way they try to manouever her into Zuko’s way with the kind of subtlety any child could see through. _I hear Princess Azula’s in your class, Mai. I think she would be a good friend for you to have, she and her brother. Perhaps you should spend more time up at the palace. Who knows what could happen, hmm?_

 

So when she sees him bent over, his shirt rising up to reveal the words on his pale skin, Mai treats it as she would any other script, and reads them aloud. Mai will not learn to throw a knife for another four years. She will not yet know how it feels to send a blade singing through the air, but even at nine years old, she will know how to skewer the things she wants.

 

* * *

 

“So, do I like, have to marry her now?” Zuko asks at the table, and Ursa has to bite her lip to keep from laughing at the sight of her son’s face screwed up solemnly. Ozai arches a black brow from behind the official correspondence he’s reading, but says nothing.

 

“Gross,” nine-year-old Azula declares, throwing a handful of fire flakes across the table into her brother’s hair. “Can we not talk about things like that? I still can’t believe Mai’s _your_  soulmate. She has the worst taste.”

 

“Obviously she does,” Zuko retorts. “She’s friends with  _you_ , after all.”

 

“Enough,” Ursa chides gently, as flames spark to life in Azula’s hands. “Nobody’s marrying anybody. Just take your time, Zuko. Nothing has to happen yet.”

 

Zuko nods, and wonders why the shivering feeling inside him feels like relief.

 

* * *

 

The only thing that puts a wrench in Zuko’s theory that his sister Azula - Azula, who kicks him under the table, who tells Ozai in dangerously sweet tones that  _Father, did you know that Zuko still can’t hold a flame for longer than a minute?_  - is actually a demon from the Spirit World is the soul mark she bears. (Well, that and the fact that Zuko has tried to exorcise Azula once. It didn’t work.) By definition, it must mean that Azula has a soul, difficult as that fact is to believe. 

 

Zuko’s soul mark curves around his hipbone, but Azula’s wraps around her wrist, like a bracelet, or like a manacle. Over the years, he’s seen his sister study the words with suspicion and disdain and - once, only once - with something like longing on her face.

 

 _I’m not afraid of you_ , her soul mark reads, and Azula tells him once, “That doesn’t make any sense.”

 

Years later, when Zuko is old enough to understand what she means, he will feel nothing but sadness. Perhaps Ozai’s worst crime wasn’t the scar he left on his son’s face, but the ones on his daughter’s soul, the ones that taught her to understand that fear is the heart of love.

 

(Years later, Azula will tell Mai,  _You should have feared me more_ , and she will not even know that what she really means is  _You should have loved me more._  She will not even know that it isn’t Mai she is really addressing.)

 

* * *

 

When Zuko is thirteen years old, the Agni Kai happens, and his father’s punishment splits his world into  _before_  and  _after_.

 

When Mai comes to visit him afterwards, his face fresh out of bandages, she makes the mistake of trying to touch his scar. He flinches backwards, his hands rising up in the air, and the flames that leap out from his palms scorch the sleeves of her tunic.

 

 _I’m sorry_ , he gasps, ashamed and angry and afraid,  _I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ , and reaches out to touch her arm only to see -

 

Mai has always worn her sleeves long. He’s never really paid it much attention, and he guesses that if he ever  _had_  thought about it, he would probably have attributed it to modesty, maybe, or the fashion of the Fire Nation. But he sees now that it was just to cover up her lie.

 

Mai’s soul mark creeps down the creamy skin of her arm. Zuko will not even remember, later, what it says, but what is unmistakable - terribly so - is that they aren’t what he said to her, that day in the garden. They aren’t his.

 

 _What is this?_  he says, demands, and Mai just stares at him, speechless.

 

The next day he gets on a boat with his uncle, and leaves the Fire Nation behind.

 

* * *

 

So when Zuko says he’s not interested in meeting anybody else who claims to be his soul mate, it’s not like he feels that way for no reason. He doesn’t have time to dwell on thoughts like these, anyway. The Avatar has not been seen for a century. If he exists - and Zuko’s mind skitters away from the possibility that he might not like the thought burns - he will not be easy to find. He lets the hunt consume him. He doesn’t believe in soulmates anymore, and even if he did, he certainly doesn’t expect to find her a thousand miles away from where his home lies.

 

But he does.

 

On a shelf of snow and ice, as the sea crashes against the shores around them, he bears down on the Avatar - who is really nothing more than a kid, all wide gray eyes - and is ready, finally, to take him prisoner, to go  _home_  -

 

\- when he hears it.

 

“Leave him alone!” a voice cries, and the world around Zuko shudders. His vision fractures for a second, everything a thousand shades of blue and white and gray. Even against the bitter cold, his hipbone burns.

 

It feels right. When he sees the girl across the snow, it feels like  _finally_  and  _you_.

 

But it also feels wrong, because this is not how it should be - this stranger facing off across him with fury written all over her face, as the Avatar hesitates between them. He should not be meeting his soulmate for the first time with an army at his back, with the frightened gazes of villagers all around them.

 

A reply springs to Zuko’s lips, but the reality crashes down on him. He was really about to do it. He was really about to say the words that would bind him to a stranger  _forever_ , and for a moment he isn’t sure which impulse fighting within him is stronger, the desire or the disgust.

 

 _No no no._ Had he learned nothing from Mai?

 

So he swallows hard, presses his lips together. Turns his back on the girl like it isn’t the hardest thing he’s done in his sixteen years of life, and commands, “Fall back! Fall back now!”

 

Confusion flickers across the faces of his soldiers, but whatever else he is, he is still their prince, the Fire Lord’s son. They obey, pulling back in what they believe to be a tactical retreat.

 

Only Zuko knows the truth: that he is fleeing.

 

And Katara stares after him, feeling oddly dissatisfied.

 

* * *

 

They meet again and again after that, coming together and drawing apart as they clash in a thousand different ways. They dance back and forth amidst the steam as the thundering crash of waves and fire fill the air.

 

He never says anything to her.

 

“Cat got your tongue?” she asks him once, as she hurls a cloud of ice knives at him, as he whirls behind a tree and hears the thuds of the blades embedding themselves into the bark echoing throughout the clearing.

 

“Still giving me the silent treatment?” she says, as she dodges the fireballs he hurls at her, dancing backwards. He moves to push past her, to get to the Avatar, but finds himself rooted to the spot by the ice tendrils that have wrapped themselves around his boots, creeping up his calves. “Is this for when I wet your pants that one time?”

 

And once, when her arms are trembling under the weight of the wave she summons to hover above his head, as he turns his head desperately for a way out: “Why won’t you say anything?” she demands, and he thinks he can hear hurt in her voice, hurt and confusion, but then she releases the water, an icy cascade that leaves him drenched and gasping as she vaults onto the sky bison’s back and disappears into the clouds.

 

* * *

 

“Do you believe in soulmates?” Zuko asks his uncle once, as they stand on the deck. Iroh is leaning against the railing, eyes closed and expression inexplicably peaceful as he tilts his head up to the sun, as the sea spray soaks into their skin.

 

“I do not understand your question, nephew,” his uncle hums. “That would be like asking if I believed in the sun, or the moon. They exist. What’s not to believe?”

 

“I mean,” Zuko says, shoving a hand through his hair. “ _How_  can you believe in them, uncle? You don’t seriously think that just because someone says a random assortment of words, it means they’re the one. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

 

“The Spirit World works in mysterious ways,” Iroh says, and Zuko shakes his head in disgust. The old man smiles at him benevolently, reaching out to pat his hand. “So what do you believe in, nephew?”

 

“I don’t,” Zuko says shortly. “Believe in things, I mean.”

 

“Too young to be so cynical,” Iroh reflects sadly. And then: “You know, my wife was not my soulmate.”

 

Zuko didn’t know that, actually. He’d never asked about Iroh’s soul mark, just because it’s kind of weird to think about your uncle’s love life. He doesn’t say anything, and Iroh looks up at the sky for a while before continuing.

 

“But she will always be the great love of my life,” Iroh says. “The mother of my child, my best friend. I miss her every day.” The old man blinks, long and slow. “You asked me if I believe in soulmates, nephew. I do. But I do not believe that they are, as you put it, the  _one_. I know that’s how the great romance scrolls tell it. But I believe in soulmates, and I believe in romantic love, and nephew, I do not believe they are necessarily one and the same. I think your soulmate can be your best friend. Or your family. Not just your lover.”

 

“What does your mark say?” Zuko asks, and Iroh turns his palm over so Zuko can read the words curling across the skin:  _Nice to meet you_.

 

“Nice to meet you?” Zuko echoes incredulously. “Uncle, that is  _the_  most generic mark I’ve ever seen. Your soulmate could be anyone!”

 

“I certainly hope so,” his uncle says happily. “Isn’t that the point? That they could be anyone, anybody out there. I do not pretend to know what role they might play: lover, friend, family. I only believe this: that they are someone who is meant to be in your life.”

 

* * *

 

Zuko isn’t sure how he feels about that theory, but there certainly does seem to be some credibility to the idea that Katara is meant to be in his life. What else would account for the fact that even after he has given up hunting the Avatar, she keeps turning up? Even here, the last place he would expect to see her: the crystal catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se, where Azula has thrown both of them.

 

The feeling seems to be mutual.

 

“Oh, great!” she says, her voice thick with disgust. “It’s you! I was just wondering if my day could get any worse, but I should’ve known you’d turn up sometime -”

 

Zuko is just about to snap back at her when he sees that somewhere in the fight with Azula, the necklace around her slender throat - and he’s held that necklace before, hasn’t he, he knows the weight and feel of it in his fingers - has shifted to the side. Against the warm brown of her skin, her soul mark is stark black, but what really makes him want to flinch is what it says:  _Sorry it took me so long_. Exactly the sarcastic retort that is hovering on his lips, just waiting to spill out into the air between them.

 

The sight makes him close his eyes, turn away abruptly. He’d been so close.  _So_  close.

 

“You have no idea,” Katara is saying, unaware that he’s seen the words curving across her skin, “what this war has put me through personally.” Her voice breaks on the next sentence. “The Fire Nation took my mother away from me.”

 

And Zuko is so, so tired suddenly of everything. _I believe in soulmates, and I believe in romantic love. I do not believe they are necessarily one and the same._  And here is the proof, isn’t it, this ferocious girl in front of him who he has met time and time again, shaking as she turns away from him.

 

Katara does not love him, and Zuko - Zuko has no idea if he loves her, or if he can even begin to, if he can even begin to love anyone - but he feels her words echo in his bones like a hum. He feels the recognition shiver in the space below his ribs.  _Someone who is meant to be in your life. I do not pretend to know what roles they might play_. Maybe in the end, this is all they can be to each other. Not a lover. Not a friend. Not even an enemy.

 

But instead a mirror. A reflection.

 

So when he forces the words out between his teeth, the first words he will ever say to her, they are wrong, but they are also strangely right.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “That’s something we have in common.” 

 

It feels like such a heavy loss when he says that, something scraped out and hollow in his chest. He can never take those words back. He can never say them again for the first time. Katara’s hand rises to her throat, almost unconsciously, as if she isn’t even aware of the way her fingers brush against her soul mark.

 

But Zuko also feels strangely free.

 

* * *

 

He will not feel that way for a long time afterwards.

 

He returns to the Fire Nation in glory, his crown and his honour restored to him, Azula by his side smiling sharp and bright as a knife. Ozai looks at him and says the two words he’s been starving for the past three years:  _Welcome home_. And then he says the two words Zuko’s been starving for his whole life:  _My son_. 

 

It should feel like freedom. It should feel like a benediction.

 

But whenever Zuko closes his eyes all he can see is the Avatar falling as Azula strikes him with lightning. All he can see is the look of disappointment on his uncle’s face. Katara’s slender fingers brushing the soul mark on her throat.

 

He starts things up with Mai again. Why not? His soul mate is long gone, and in any case, he knows that after what he’s done Katara’s hatred for him must run fast and deep. Maybe this is the safest thing all around: somebody who never makes your heart jump in your chest, someone who will never make you feel uncertain and weightless.

 

The weeks slip by, though, and eventually Zuko realizes that this isn’t enough. He’d thought the opposite of being weightless would be to feel centred, rooted. But all he feels is burdened. Some days he cannot even sit up in bed without feeling his bones groaning under the weight of the life he has surrendered.

 

But _surrender_  is not a word that exists in Zuko’s vocabulary.  _I’ve always had to struggle and fight and that’s made me strong_. One day he wakes up and decides that if he has given up a better life - he can damn well go and take it back. 

 

_Someone who is meant to be in your life._

 

It should come as no surprise to either of them when after the Day of the Black Sun, after Zuko’s confrontation with his father, after the failed invasion - 

 

\- he turns up again in Katara’s. 

 

* * *

 

Of course it’s not easy. When has anything in Zuko’s life ever been easy? (When he thinks that, he can hear his uncle’s voice chide him,  _Do not indulge in self-pity._   _Are you a woodstove, nephew? Do you think you can just sit in the corner and stew?_  and oh, he misses the old man then more than he has in weeks.) 

 

Every day he has to fight against the distrust he sees in their eyes. The wariness in the set of their shoulders. The way Katara makes sure to always stay near a body of water when he is around.

 

But it is worth it. When he sees them laughing around the campfire, the flames throwing cheerful orange light across their faces; when Sokka hands him a bowl of rice without saying anything; when Toph finally elbows him in the ribs the way she would any of them - it makes Zuko happier than he can remember.

 

Katara proves harder to win over. 

 

No, that’s not true. He’s won her over once, hasn’t he? There in the crystal catacombs, the green light shivering over their features.  _I trusted you, and then you turned around and betrayed us_. He studies the way she looks at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion, and is sad and guilty and remorseful, but not surprised. There are days when he thinks he should just give up, surrender to the fact that Katara will most probably hate him for the rest of her life.

 

But  _surrender_  has never been a word in Zuko’s vocabulary.

 

* * *

 

 _I do not pretend to be know what role they might play: lover, friend, family_. Zuko knows he and Katara will never be any of those things. In the crystal catacombs, he’d thought all he could ever be to her was a mirror. But one night Sokka tells him about Yon Rha, and the next morning Zuko goes to Katara and tells her,  _I know who killed your mother, and I’m going to help you find him_.

 

Perhaps this is the role he was meant to play. If nothing else, this is what he can be to her: a weapon in her hand.

 

He watches as she makes a soldier bend under her fingers, his muscles and bones jerking out of his control, and thinks in awe and fear:  _bloodbender_. He watches as she bears down on the cowering Yon Rha, and feels the urge to do the same. 

 

Zuko is a prince. He has never in his life knelt to anyone. He has always been the one genuflected to.

 

But when Katara freezes the rain around them, a million crystal droplets hanging in icy suspension, he has to actively fight the impulse to drop to one knee. The sight of her fierce blue eyes and face drawn in anger sends something bright and electric crackling through his body like lightning. The adrenaline of terror, but also a feeling almost reverential.

 

Perhaps he is his father’s son, after all. Perhaps fear really is the heart of love.

 

* * *

 

But no. 

 

Because he feels that same electricity sparking through him even in scenes as far removed from battle as you can get: when she is kicking Sokka’s sleeping roll going, “Wake up, you big lump!” When he is helping her stir food into the cooking pot and their fingers brush for just a heartbeat. When she places a hand lightly on his shoulder as she relieves him for the next night watch shift. 

 

A hundred interactions, a thousand glances, a million ways the words on her throat never fail to catch his eye. The rhythm they fall into is so hard-won, but so unbearably sweet when they do.They become used to getting each other’s backs, exchanging eye-rolls over the heads of the others, the two exasperated caretakers in a horde of children.  _Get out of the bison’s mouth, Sokka,_ he says before she can, and the way she looks at him when he does: appreciative, amused, affectionate -  Zuko lies awake the whole night thinking about it.

 

In battle Katara is electric. She is a whirlwind. She is a tsunami. She is the only thing in the world he can look at.

 

But he also feels the same way when she is combing her hair by the fire; when she is stroking Appa’s furry nose; when she laughs at one of Sokka’s jokes.

 

Fear is not the heart of love. Love is the heart of love.

 

* * *

 

 _I do not pretend to know what role they play: lover, friend, family_. Maybe two of those three things isn’t so bad.

 

Zuko is honest enough with himself to know that he wants more. To recognize the longing in his throat for what it is. But they are almost at the end of the war, and every day could be his last, and if he dies tomorrow - he is also honest enough with himself to know that two of those three things isn’t so bad.

 

* * *

 

The night before the comet, Zuko goes to relieve Katara’s shift for the night watch, and pulls up short when he sees her shoulders shaking. She sees him and turns away abruptly, brushing her hand over her eyes, but it is very clear that she has been crying. 

 

“Katara?” he says hesitantly, and she says, “I’m fine.”

 

Zuko looks helplessly at Appa, but the sky bison just blinks slowly at him, flicking his ears. _You’re on your own here, kid._

 

“No, you’re not,” Zuko says cautiously. “What’s wrong? You can tell me.” 

 

“It’s going to sound stupid.”

 

“I am never, ever going to think you’re stupid, Katara. Except for if you try to wake Toph up when she’s had less than eight hours of sleep. That’s not just stupid, that’s practically death-defying.”

 

She laughs at that, and he steps closer. For a moment, neither of them say anything, and then Katara tips her head up to the sky and admits, “It’s just… if we die tomorrow, I am never going to meet my soul mate.”

 

Zuko’s entire body jolts, and he’s glad for the darkness of the night around them, the way he knows it must obscure the guilt and shock on his features. “W- what?”

 

“My soul mate,” she repeats. “I know it’s stupid, but also… I’ve been thinking about meeting them since I was a little girl, you know? Doesn’t everyone?”

 

Zuko doesn’t trust himself to speak, not with the way his heart is jackrabbiting in his chest, so he just nods.

 

“I thought…” Katara laughs a little, self-conscious. “I thought for a while that it might be Aang.”

 

Zuko isn’t surprised - he’s seen the way the Avatar looks at Katara, seen the easy affection they slip into - but it still hurts, a knife twisting in his gut.

 

“I mean,” Katara continues, and she’s turning now, pulling her necklace aside so that he can see the words on her skin, the words he’s known for months now. The words he’d almost, almost spoken into existence. “My soul mark reads  _Sorry it took me so long_. Wouldn’t that be just perfect if those were the first words Aang said to me? A hundred years missing, and he says  _sorry it took me so long_.” She shakes her head. “But it’s not him.”

 

The wind rustles through the branches, shaking the leaves all around them, and into its whisper Katara says quietly, “And you know what? I’m glad it’s not him.”   

 

Zuko’s heart is jumping for a completely different reason now; caught up in the way Katara’s eyes are glittering in the starlight. They are very close now. He can see the pulse beating under her jaw.

 

“What does your mark say?” Katara says, her voice so soft. 

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Zuko says hoarsely, and she is tilting her head up to him and - 

 

Sokka comes into the clearing, arms wrapped around himself. “Hey, so I figured if this is the last night before we go out in a blaze of glory against Ozai, we should at least be together. I don’t want to be alone tonight. Hey, Toph, wake up! Somebody get Momo!”

 

Zuko turns back to look at Katara, but the moment is gone.

 

* * *

 

 _What does your mark say?_  

 

Katara finds out eventually. 

 

The way she finds out leaves something to be desired though, and by that Zuko means: he would’ve preferred it if it hadn’t entailed  _excruciating pain_. 

 

There isn’t much he remembers about taking Azuka’s lightning bolt. All he remembers is the blue light around them and the look in Katara’s eyes. The choice was death or watching Katara fall, and that wasn’t a choice at all.

 

When he wakes up - dragged from the dark back into the light by the urgent thrum of Katara’s voice, the soothing coolness of the healing water on his skin - all he can do for a moment is blink, breathe, feel the just-awakened beat of his heart in his chest. Every bone in his body hurts, and he has never felt so drained, but the feel of Katara’s hands on his abdomen sends a different kind of lightning jolting through him.

 

She is gasping, breathless, her eyes glittering with tears as she presses her palms into his skin. “Zuko, you’re okay - you’re okay -”

 

“I’m okay,” he rasps, his throat sore and lightning-scorched, and she laughs, shakily. 

 

“You’re okay,” she agrees, running her hands over his skin, his abdomen, his stomach, his hips - 

 

His hip, where his soul mark is standing out in stark relief against his pale skin. He sees the way she studies the words, her hands freezing in place, her mouth moving silently.  _Leave him alone._

 

“I said this to you,” she says, and she sounds so young, suddenly. Behind them Azula writhes and sobs, the blasts of fire she’s exhaling lighting up their features in bursts of blue-white light, but Zuko can only look at Katara’s face. “These were the first words I ever said to you.” 

 

“Katara,” Zuko says, but doesn’t say anything more.

 

“These are the first words I ever said to you,” Katara repeats. “I - I don’t even know why I remember that. I don’t think I even chose to remember them - they’re just - I just know. I just know.” And Zuko flashes back to when she first said those words, back at the South Pole - the way the world had shuddered around them, his vision fracturing, the look of confusion on her face.

 

Her hand rises up to touch her neck.  _Sorry it took me so long_ , curling across her throat. “But this - this isn’t the first thing you ever said to me.”

 

“Katara,” he says again, softer. 

 

“How can that be?”

 

“I didn’t want them to be,” Zuko says. “I couldn’t let them be.” 

 

Confusion creases her brow, and later Zuko will tell her why: he will detail a million reasons for that decision back in Ba Sing Se.  _I didn’t want a soulmate. I didn’t need a soulmate. I didn’t want either of us to be chained to each other. Love must always be free._

 

But for now all she says is, “It doesn’t matter,” an echo of the words he’d said to her the night before. And like an echo, like a dream, she is tilting her face towards him again, only this time it happens. 

 

Zuko kisses her.

 

Her lips are chapped, and the air is full of the smell of smoke and soot and ozone, and the pain in Zuko’s chest flares to life as he half-sits up, as he slides a hand into Katara’s hair, but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care, he has been waiting a lifetime for this. 

 

As if she’s reading his mind - because it seems Katara is always reading his mind, she is always reading him, his echo, his mirror - she laughs against his mouth softly. The war is over, and they are alive, and his soul mate is smiling against his lips, and Zuko, oh, Zuko has never felt this content. “I was wondering if you were ever going to get around to doing that.”

 

Zuko pulls back, just a little. Smiles. Knows she will laugh even before she does, clear and joyful. And he says to her, “Sorry it took me so long."


End file.
